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Look up statements about the eight powers, the six direction harmonies, things of that sort. Eight tends to be used a lot in Japanese arts...eight direction cuts, etc. Ueshiba mentions the eight powers in other doka / writings I believe. I've come to think of it as code word for the internal aspects of the art. Others could give a better and more concrete breakdown. Toss Mike Sigman a line...he might reel you in...

Best,
Ron

Ron Tisdale
-----------------------
"The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of his behind."
St. Bonaventure (ca. 1221-1274)

"Deep in the glow of Izu
Which shines in the Heavens above,
There is the reverberating sound
Of the King of the Eight Powers." - Morihei Ueshiba

What's it mean?

Isn't Izu a drink?

Izu is the masculine corrective or rule-making principle identified by O Sensei's understanding of Shinto with the universal Deity, equivalent to the Oomoto -- the "Great Origin."

Reverberation is resonance, a special quality of interacting vibration resulting in compounding interference. It is often often spoken of elsewhere in the Doka as yamabiko -- the "mountain echo," It is spoken of here as the voice of the King of the Eight Powers (you can look those up) but they are four pairs of opposed cyclic mutations of physical (and metaphysical) substance. (hachiriki) these are intimately related to the shikon "four souls" and the sangen "three roots or origins" and the "ichirei" One spirit.

The King of the Eight Powers is a special kami called Izunome, ( different from Izu) who is a kami formed to purify the divine principles from accumulated filth or excesses of the physical realm. O Sensei believed that Izunome had inspired and informed his building of Aikido. Aikido is intended as a practice in misogi-no-gyo or ritual of purification within which the kami Izunome performs its task.

That task is essentially in bringing all things to their proper center. Too fluid, it solidifies; too solid, it liquefies; too divided, it unifies, too monolithic, it divides; too static, it motivates, too mobile, it stills; too expansive, it contracts, too cramped and it expands. (OK, now you don't have to look 'em up)

For westerners, Kami are too soon called "gods," when the word merely means "exalted, one above (others)." All kami (save the three Kami of Creation) are bound to their own mono, a thing, place, event or particular circumstance of manifestation. The other three are active in the Creation, respectively of the center of heaven and of all seen and all unseen things, and after which are deemed "hidden kami" -- kami not bound to any apparent mono.

Since at least the eighteenth centuryShinto has wrestled with an inherent tendency to devolve the many various levels of kami into an essentially hierarchical transcendent monotheism implied by the its creation myth . Most kami actually fit better with the Western tradition of angels or non personified elemental powers than with the polytheism of gods in the Greek or Egyptian modes.

Exalted humans are also called kami, more akin to saints in our usage and useful and beneficent intercessors (and allowing also for malevolent vengeful spirits, as the case may be) but certainly not confused with beings of much more plainly supernatural power. The same blurring of lines in the usage of the term kami is seen in the traditional image of St. Michael, who is so named a "saint" (a word that has acquried specific connotations but began merely being an adjective meaning "holy") and yet St. Michael is indisputably not an exalted human but an angel, a personified non-material spirit. O Sensei even specifically identifies Izunome' task with St. Michaels' task in driving the demons (fallen angels) out of heaven in the Book of Daniel.

yes, quite nice ,so Izu, the Great Originator, ( who we call God) who was a Shinto god, who shines in the Heaven above, reverberates to Izunome, The King of the Eight Powers, what was the basis for Aikido.

Wow, so Osensei was able to use far less words....

Today's is much simpler...... far easier to predict the fading of the evening moon( not as to orbit, which is finite, but as to the clouds covering it) than the enlightenment or delusion of folks..wonder if he said anything about a Lunar eclipse.

Last edited by GeneC : 01-06-2009 at 06:48 PM.

Only between a single breath is Yin/Yang in harmony
Emotion is pure energy flowing feely thru the body-Dan Millman

To the Technique of Tsurugi,
Neither brush nor word of mouth can render due service.
Saying nothing you must go forth
And so must you know (satori).

- Morihei Ueshiba

To me, nothing any of us can do would do Tsurugi ( the art of the broadsword) any justice, but we must go forth anyway, not speak (of it) and do the best we can and obtain sudden enlightenment and a state of consciousness attained by intuitive illumination representing the spiritual goal of Zen Buddhism.

Only between a single breath is Yin/Yang in harmony
Emotion is pure energy flowing feely thru the body-Dan Millman

To the Technique of Tsurugi,
Neither brush nor word of mouth can render due service.
Saying nothing you must go forth
And so must you know (satori).

- Morihei Ueshiba

To me, nothing any of us can do would do Tsurugi ( the art of the broadsword) any justice, but we must go forth anyway, not speak (of it) and do the best we can and obtain sudden enlightenment and a state of consciousness attained by intuitive illumination representing the spiritual goal of Zen Buddhism.

Again we must look to Kojiki. Tsurugi refers here in context to the the Kusanagi ("grass-cutter") sword (one of the imperial regalia), taken from the tail of the demon serpent by the trickster kami Susanoo. Kusanagi is a double-edged tsurugi.

A massive fire was set on the plain of tall grass against Susanoo. Susanoo used Kusanagi, not to try in vain to directly defeat this irresistible and impenetrable attack directed at him (the fire), but simply to cut down the grass in front of him to eliminate its ability to reach him.

He did this, of course, because of the tallness of the grass, where those looking from a safe distance could merely see him dancing crazily about in circles, and could not see or understand what in the world he might be doing. The onlookers thus expected him merely to run away in humiliating defeat or to die in vain fighting an undefeatable foe. Instead, they saw him dancing madly around, the fire continued on seemingly unaffected and yet he was untouched.

They could say nothing to anyone else about what had happened unless they were willing to go forth with him -- under the falling blade, in the face of the raging fire.

Asking doesn't give license. Imo, adding words only obscure it's meaning. The real test is to use the least words to mean the most.

The world is not so simple, nor so reducible. Chaotic patterns are only disclosed by many, many iterations of the underlying algorithm. Until you repeat it to see the variations you cannot grasp its nature from the very simple exercise you do to produce those complex patterns. It is not reducible in its expression, though it is exceedingly compact in its operation. Stating the operation is trivial and says almost nothing about its full truth.

Bujutsu: The form and the spirit of the Kami
The parent of Izu and Mizu
So precious!

- Morihei Ueshiba

Izu, as indicated in a post before is the corrective principle of the divine in the world making it function properly, and Mizu is the female principle functioning in the world so as to save it from the accumulated consequences of its failure to function properly ( cleansing the "accumulated filth" in the Kojiki's image). Both are related here to to the Holy Parent (Oomoto -- the Great Origin). Izu and Mizu are symbolized in the "cross of Aiki" 十字 "juuji" which is both a physical and metaphysical concept in Aikido. Properly speaking, "Izunome," mentioned before as the kami with whom O Sensei believed himself possessed, is the conjoining of the two.

The trinity thus seen in the Oomoto-specific symbology is related directly by O Sensei elsewhere to the Kojiki's own Creator trinity of Ame no Mi-naka-nushi no Kami, (Lord of Heavenly Center) and Kami Musubi no Kami and Takami Musubi no Kami -- the aspects of this trinity that are responsible for producing, respectively, all things seen (mono) and unseen (kami).

Anyone who has a passing familiarity with the Christian Nicene Creed will note a similarity in this functional trinity -- and Izu and Mizu are related intimately with the origin and function of kotodama (word-spirit), and O Sensei himself related the source of kotodama directly to the Divine Logos (citing John 1:1, no less).

Before anyone thinks I have gone off the rails on the East-West parallels to Christian monotheism -- note that O Sensei made the explicit connection and please read carefully the long struggle with monotheistic thought within Shinto itself, long predating the advent of even Oomoto, back to the seventeenth century at least.

(and perhaps far longer depending on how much Christian-Japanese contact you might allow to have occurred in China in the 7th--9th centuries (when Kojiki was being written down, in Chinese script, and Kobo Daishi brought Shingon ("True Word"), to Japan from the T'ang capital, which had dynamic Christian and Buddhist communities that were even cautioned by the Chinese ritual authorities for too much "mixing" among the scholars of different disciplines. ).

If we take this parallel one step further and expressly see the trinitarian relationship laid out in O Sensei's mythology in its overt Christian form -- this Doka takes on another level of connection with the language of the Nicene Creed, of Exodus and of Pauline writing.

That places The Holy Parent, Lord of the Center of heaven -- identified with God the Father. "maker of heaven and earth, of all that is visible and invisible..."

Izu -- the "earthly producer" or Incarnate aspect of the Divine, the corrective principle, correcting something that had gone fundamentally wrong -- in the Logos of Christ Jesus, Savior and Redeemer ("through him all things were made.)

Mizu --the "heavenly producer" aspect -- working continually to repair the spiritual consequences of the things that had been wrong -- identified with the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete. ("the Lord, the giver of life.")

And we then find this to cap off this consideration of the Doka's reference to "Bujutsu" as the form and spirit of this Holy Parent:

Quote:

Exodus 15:1-4 ("Song of Moses") wrote:

I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.

The LORD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him.

The LORD is a man of war; the LORD is his name.
...
Thy right hand, O LORD, glorious in power, thy right hand, O LORD, shatters the enemy.

For O Sensei to identify himself as being possessed by Izunome -- if this parallel holds -- is to say no less than that he has become possessed by Christ Jesus. And there is certainly a parallel for that also - and also relating to the cross image:

Quote:

Galatians2:19-20 wrote:

I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me;

Some may look askance, but given the way he approached Oomoto, this seems very much the type of engagement with his thoughts that O Sensei might have wished to occur. The truth is larger than one culture -- and therefore may be expressed in any culture.